QuickLook / Quick View images and other files

Often you need to see a preview of documents that you have on Mac. With images that’s easy, by setting the right preferences MacOS / OS X will show you thumbnails of images and even previews when you select an image and hit the spacebar.

That’s possible because Apple built an interesting technology into MacOS / OS X called QuickLook.

QuickLook can either create or extract previews in certain file types and present them to you, so that it is easier to find out whether it is the right file.

JPG, PDF, movies, audio files, text files and many more.

What about QuarkXPress documents?

You might not have QuarkXPress running or need to visually see a QuarkXPress document on a Mac where you do not have QuarkXPress installed.

On Macs, where you have QuarkXPress installed, this is easy, just hit the spacebar. As QuarkXPress will have installed a QuickLook plug-in on first launch, Finder can show you thumbnails and previews of QuarkXPress documents.

On Macs, where you do not have QuarkXPress installed, you can install a free QuickLook plug-in (made by Quark) to also see previews and thumbnails of QuarkXPress documents. Here’s an extract of an article on forums.quark.com:

Free QuickLook plug-in to preview QuarkXPress projects
This will allow you to see thumbnails of QuarkXPress Projects (.qxp) in Finder and also provide a QuickLook preview.
This works for .qxp files created with QuarkXPress 7, 8, 9, 10, 2015 and 2016; regardless whether you have QuarkXPress installed or not.

And what about “exotic” file formats?

If you have other file formats that you often need to preview and out-of-the-box MacOS doesn’t handle them, then have a look at the following great site, it lists all known QuickLook plug-ins – free and commercial – available for MacOS / OS X:

Both an engineer and a layout artist, Matthias bridges the gap between technology and people.

Before joining Quark, Matthias pioneered print, Web, and multimedia products for multiple German publishing companies. Since 1997 he has played a central role in shaping Quark’s desktop and enterprise software.
Starting 2003 Matthias has focused on Quark’s interactive and digital publishing solutions. He is an active participant in design and publishing communities and represents Quark in the Ghent PDF Workgroup.

Since February 2014 Matthias heads Quark’s Desktop Publishing business unit and is therefore responsible for QuarkXPress.

A bit over three months ago, customers asked Quark why we don’t create a Facebook Group for QuarkXPress.

Quark already had a Facebook Page for QuarkXPress, so I first was hesitant. The Facebook Page is handled by Quark’s Social Media team and “pushes” out news and information about and around QuarkXPress. Sure, Facebook pages also allow a back channel, via comments or a “post to page” at the side, however both is not very prominent. A Facebook Page still feels dominated by the creator of the page, it feels like a push channel. So I was hesitant to create “just another page”.

When I looked at Facebook Groups, it felt like this could be different. A bit more like forums, more user interaction, as everybody can post on the main page.

So exactly three months ago, on July 21, 2015, I created the QuarkXPress Group on Facebook, a bit of an experiment and to see whether that is valuable for QuarkXPress users and fans.

And it was. Almost 700 members after one month, currently at 870 members and every day another fan or user asks to join. So this Group will stay and has become an important communication method between the QuarkXPress team at Quark and QuarkXPress users. And it also helps QuarkXPress users and fans to communicate with each other.

There are many posts by the members of the group, sharing memories of QuarkXPress 3, asking questions on how to do something in QuarkXPress 10 or QuarkXPress 2015, seeking help or participating in small polls. For example an ongoing Facebook Group poll asked about the best version of QuarkXPress so far, and 66% think that it’s QuarkXPress 2015 (see here). And it feels a bit like a QuarkXPress User Group. Another poll asks which feature is more important and thus directly influencing development at Quark.

And it even spans into the real world, when I presented at a tradeshow in Birmingham last week, five members of the QuarkXPress Facebook Group came to the show to talk to me in person.

Both an engineer and a layout artist, Matthias bridges the gap between technology and people.

Before joining Quark, Matthias pioneered print, Web, and multimedia products for multiple German publishing companies. Since 1997 he has played a central role in shaping Quark’s desktop and enterprise software.
Starting 2003 Matthias has focused on Quark’s interactive and digital publishing solutions. He is an active participant in design and publishing communities and represents Quark in the Ghent PDF Workgroup.

Since February 2014 Matthias heads Quark’s Desktop Publishing business unit and is therefore responsible for QuarkXPress.

Badia Software’s BigPicture ($59.99, or $14.99/month) is an XTension for QuarkXPress 9/8/7/6/5/4 or a plug-in for InDesign CS6/5/4/3 that lists all the pictures in a project, and shows all the vital information about them (color model, format, file size, effective resolution, compression, scaling, angle, date modified, fonts, colors, etc.).

In addition, BigPicture can select all the pictures in a document that match specific criteria (for example, all RGB images). Its interface shows image thumbnails and the location of each picture in the document as well as its location on your hard drive (you can click to reveal it in the Finder). You can save a report of all this info as well.

You can directly edit a picture using any appropriate application, and BigPicture will update the picture in the layout as soon as you save the image. You can rename a picture file from within BigPicture, and BigPicture updates the link. (You can even batch-rename pictures using logical operators such as “Picture name does not contain”, or “Picture name ends with”.)

You can search for missing pictures and have BigPicture automatically link to files it finds, update all modified pictures in one step, unlink all pictures, relink pictures in a different folder (great for swapping high-res and low-res pictures), and replace any picture while maintaining original transformations such as scaling and cropping.

Notably, a trial version can now be used for unlimited time, although some features are not available until you purchase a subscription or the full version.

Jay Nelson is the editorial director of PlanetQuark.com, and the editor and publisher of Design Tools Monthly. He’s also the author of the QuarkXPress 8 and QuarkXPress 7 training titles at Lynda.com, as well as the training videos Quark includes in the box with QuarkXPress 7 . In addition, Jay writes regularly for Macworld and Photoshop User magazines and speaks at industry events.

One feature I’ve heard people wish for in QuarkXPress is to check spelling as you type — especially in multiple languages. One time-tested solution is AutoCorrectXT 3.4, a $50 XTension for QuarkXPress 7/8/9 from AthenaSoft. In addition to using its own dictionaries, it can also correct user-defined typing errors.

Jay Nelson is the editorial director of PlanetQuark.com, and the editor and publisher of Design Tools Monthly. He’s also the author of the QuarkXPress 8 and QuarkXPress 7 training titles at Lynda.com, as well as the training videos Quark includes in the box with QuarkXPress 7 . In addition, Jay writes regularly for Macworld and Photoshop User magazines and speaks at industry events.

Jay Nelson is the editorial director of PlanetQuark.com, and the editor and publisher of Design Tools Monthly. He’s also the author of the QuarkXPress 8 and QuarkXPress 7 training titles at Lynda.com, as well as the training videos Quark includes in the box with QuarkXPress 7 . In addition, Jay writes regularly for Macworld and Photoshop User magazines and speaks at industry events.

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